“Ah.” I cleared my throat. “So . . . you’re trying out?”
“Yeah.”
“Owen, you hate baseball.”
“Yeah.”
Scratching Worf behind the ears, I watched as Owen started adding notes to our proposal. “You know, you don’t have to try out just because Steve wants you to play.”
Steve was Owen’s stepdad. He was nice and all, but he really wanted Owen to like sports as much as he did. And he never seemed to notice what an amazing artist Owen was. Seriously, the boy could draw flame-spitting dragons and armor-clad trolls good enough to hang in a museum.
Owen shrugged without looking up. “It’s not a big deal. I probably won’t make it, anyway.”
That’s not the point, I wanted to say. “Okay.”
“What about tomorrow before school?” he asked. “We could meet in Mrs. Driscoll’s room—she’ll be there for tutoring. I could see if my mom can drop me off early.”
Now it was my turn to make a face. “Can’t. I’m supposed to work on that trio with Aaron and Liam. Ugh.”
Owen glanced at me. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s insanely hard,” I told him. “And Solo and Ensemble is less than a month away. And I found out they were both in an ensemble together last year that did really well, but this is my first one and if I mess up, then all three of us will get a bad rating and—”
“Holly, you can do it,” Owen interrupted. “That’s why Mr. Dante put you three in an ensemble together. You’re all first chair in your sections—he knows you can handle it.”
“I guess so.” I smiled as he went back to jotting down notes. Every time I got nervous about something, like chair tests or science quizzes, Owen always managed to make me feel better. I wished he had that kind of confidence in himself.
By the time I got to the band hall before school on Friday, the butterflies were back in full force. I grabbed my horn and hurried to a practice room, hoping to play through “Triptych” at least once before Aaron and Liam showed up. I’d practiced it last night for almost an hour. (It would’ve been a whole hour if Chad hadn’t started kicking the wall our rooms shared until I stopped.)
I played it once, then twice, and was almost through it a third time when the practice-room door opened.
“Sorry we’re late,” Aaron said with an apologetic smile.
“It’s okay!” I watched him drop his backpack on his chair, then stand back to let Liam in. With the three of us plus Liam’s tuba, the practice room suddenly felt kind of cramped.
“Hi, Holly.” Liam sat down, carefully balancing the tuba on his knees and opening his music folder.
“Hi.” I toyed nervously with the red-and-purple beaded bracelet on my wrist. Julia had made it as a Christmas present, along with a pair of really cool earrings for Natasha. “So . . . have you guys played through this at all yet?”
“Yeah, sort of.” Liam stifled a yawn.
“I haven’t really looked at it,” Aaron said. His brow furrowed as he dug through his travesty of a backpack. Seriously, Aaron was extremely nice and extremely cute, but he was the most unorganized person ever. (Well, except for Chad.)
My fingers twitched when several crumpled balls of paper fell from Aaron’s bag, followed by a few pens and a broken protractor. Really, how hard is it to actually use folders and a pencil bag?
“Here it is.” Aaron pulled out a small square of paper and unfolded it. I saw the title “Triptych” at the top and cringed—it was so wrinkled, I couldn’t even see how Aaron was going to read the notes. And when he started cramming all the pens and other junk back into his backpack, I practically had to sit on my hands to keep myself from flattening out all his papers and making good use of the mostly empty binder sticking out of the bag.
Setting the music on his stand, Aaron squinted. “Yeah, this looks kind of hard. What’s your part like?” He leaned over until his shoulder was pretty much touching mine. “Wow, that looks crazy, too.”
He sat up straight again, which made me feel equal parts relieved and disappointed, followed by a healthy dose of guilt. He’s Natasha’s boyfriend, I told the butterflies in my stomach firmly. Get over it already.
“Harder than that quartet we were in last year,” Liam agreed. “‘Schizo.’”
“‘Scherzo,’” Aaron corrected him with a grin.
“That’s what I said.”
“This is harder than that was, really?” I couldn’t keep the worry out of my voice. “So you guys think we can learn this by next month?”
“Yeah, sure,” Aaron said. “It’s not that bad.”
I looked at my music, then arched an eyebrow at him. Aaron laughed.
“Okay, it’s hard,” he said. “But it’s pretty short. I mean, compared to our other band music.”
Well, that was true.
“Should we just try the first eight bars?” Liam asked, and I nodded.
“Okay.”
“All right.” Aaron started tapping his foot in a slow, steady beat, then counted us off. “One, two, three, four . . .”
We played. And it . . . wasn’t bad. Not good, but not catastrophic, either. By the time we finished, I was already feeling a little bit better. Okay, maybe I was picturing where I’d put the medal you get for a Superior rating on a solo or ensemble in my room. Probably on my bulletin board. Or maybe on my bookshelf. And hey, if I did well on my solo, I’d have two medals.
“Should we try up to measure sixteen?” Aaron was saying, and I blinked. Time to stop daydreaming about medals and actually rehearse.
After half an hour, we could pretty much play the first half of “Triptych” without stopping or making too many mistakes. I mean, we were playing it pretty slow, but still.
“This isn’t so bad,” Liam said, emptying his spit valve. “The first time we rehearsed our quartet last year, I kept getting lost.”
“Yeah, so did I.” Aaron smiled at me. “You sound great, Holly,” he added. “I promise I’ll practice more before next week.”
“What? No!” I sputtered, feeling my face grow warm. “You don’t have to practice . . . I mean, you should, because—no, I mean you sound great, too!”
For the love . . . stop talking, Holly.
Liam yawned hugely. “No chance we can do this after school next time?” he asked Aaron. “I kind of hate mornings.”
“Sorry,” Aaron replied. “Baseball.” The first bell rang, and we started packing up. I tried not to watch as Aaron stuffed his copy of “Triptych” back in his bag. Seriously, did the boy not have a music folder? Oh wait, it was probably lost in the chaos that was his cubby.
“Hey, you have the third Watch the Fog movie on DVD, right?” Aaron asked me.
“Yeah, although I think my brother loaned it to one of his friends,” I answered, stacking my music neatly and sliding it into my folder. (Yes, I was trying to set a good example in the hopes that my neatness would inspire him. A girl could dream.) “I can check if you want to borrow it, though.”
“That’d be great!” Aaron said. “Hey, I finally saw House of the Wicked. You were right, it was awesome.”
I nodded. “Definitely one of my all-time favorites. And the sequel comes out in a few months!”
The three of us talked about horror movies while we put our instruments up and left the band hall (although I couldn’t understand half of what Liam said because he kept yawning). When we rounded the corner and I saw Julia at her locker with Seth and Natasha, my stomach tightened.
You aren’t doing anything wrong, I told myself. And Natasha didn’t look upset to see us walking together. Still, I made sure to keep a safe distance from Aaron, just in case.
I waved to Liam when he headed down the hall to his locker, then joined Julia and Seth while Natasha talked to Aaron. (His locker was right next to Julia’s.)
“How’d the trio stuff
go?” Julia’s voice was light, but she was looking at me intently. I glanced over my shoulder at Aaron, then gave Julia a reassuring smile.
“It’s hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be.”
I meant it, too. “Triptych” wasn’t so bad. Neither was being in a trio with Aaron. In fact, I was happy to be in an ensemble with a friend. And the sooner the butterflies in my stomach realized that’s all he was, the happier I’d be.
I spent most of the weekend helping my parents finally take down all our Christmas decorations. (Seriously, the tree was looking pathetic. Half the pine needles had fallen off—walking near it in bare feet was just asking for trouble.) While Chad was out with his friends, I snuck in a lot of good practice time on my horn solo, which was hard but also really fun to play. There was a piano part, too, but I wouldn’t get to rehearse it with Mrs. Benitez, the choir director who accompanied pretty much everyone’s solo, until right before Solo and Ensemble Competition. Yet another thing to worry about—what if I messed up because I wasn’t used to hearing the piano part? I decided to memorize my solo, just in case. That way, hopefully, I wouldn’t get lost, no matter what it sounded like with piano.
Owen told me in science on Monday that he’d spent his weekend at the batting cages with Steve, practicing for baseball tryouts. So Monday night I rewrote our proposal for the science fair project myself. I even made a cover page that said Alien Park and had a funny image of aliens riding a roller coaster that I found online. It wasn’t nearly as cool as Owen’s sketches, but I was pretty happy with it overall.
When I got to science on Tuesday, Owen was already at his desk, sketchbook out, drawing furiously. Even from the door, I could tell from his expression that he was upset about something.
I set my backpack down on the desk next to his and glanced at the sketch. My eyes widened a little. No dragons or trolls this time—he was drawing himself in a baseball uniform. A speeding baseball had apparently smacked him in the chest, and he was falling backward, the bat flying out of his hands. It kind of looked like the time Trevor had gotten hit with a volleyball during our bake-sale fund-raiser last semester and fell right on our table of brownies and cupcakes. Except in the drawing, Owen was about to fall onto a pile of baseball gloves, which—I leaned forward, squinting—had really long, wicked nails, like evil glove-claws. Yikes.
“So I guess baseball tryouts didn’t go too well?” I asked, sitting at my desk.
Owen looked surprised to see me. “Oh, hey.” He glanced back down at his drawing. “No, they went fine. I made the JV team, actually.”
“What? How?” I clapped my hand over my mouth, hoping I hadn’t hurt his feelings. “I mean, congratulations!”
With a halfhearted smile, Owen closed his sketchbook. “Thanks, but it’s just second string. I probably won’t play much.” He made a face. “And now I’ve got practice after school, plus all the games. Including Thursdays,” he added.
“Oh.” I chewed my lip. “Well, that’s okay. I’ve got all-region rehearsal Friday, so I should probably practice after school Thursday, anyway.” Owen still looked miserable, and to be honest, I was pretty bummed at the thought of not getting any Prophets time with him for the next month or so, too. “I guess Steve was pretty happy about it, huh?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful.
Owen shrugged. “Yeah. My mom, too. Anyway . . . do you have our proposal?”
“Yup!” I pulled the packet out of my bag and handed it to Owen. His face brightened when he saw the cover page.
“Nice!”
“Thanks.”
“I’m really sorry I didn’t help more,” he added, flipping through the pages.
“Don’t worry about it.” I glanced at his sketchbook. Something was sticking out—it looked like a page from a magazine. “Hey, what’s that?”
“What?” Owen looked down. “Oh, nothing.”
He pushed the page back inside the sketchbook, but I’d already seen the title.
“That was for an art contest?” I asked excitedly. “What kind?”
Owen’s face was a little red. “It’s just this drawing competition. The winners get to go to an animation workshop in San Antonio for a weekend.”
“Awesome!” I exclaimed. “Are you entering? You are, right?”
“No. I don’t know . . . maybe.”
“Owen, you have to,” I said firmly, and he blushed even more. “No, seriously. Promise you’ll enter.”
He smiled down at his sketchbook. “Okay, I promise.”
If ten bucks per load was a fair price for doing my brother’s laundry, then I’d have to charge at least a hundred to clean out his car. It wasn’t even a car anymore. It was a giant garbage can with wheels and an engine.
I sat in the passenger seat Friday morning, knees pulled up to my chest so I wouldn’t get grease on my shoes from all the mostly empty Lotus Garden cartons. Chad took a sharp turn, and soda sloshed out of the cup holder and onto my horn case.
“Ew,” I muttered, wiping my case with a napkin that wasn’t all that clean to begin with. “I cannot believe Mom had a meeting this morning.”
“That’s the thanks I get for hauling you all the way across town.” Chad started flipping through radio stations while we sat at a red light. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot for driving me around in the trash mobile.”
“I don’t get why you’ve got this band thing at Bishop High School, anyway,” Chad said. “Everyone from Millican goes to Ridgewood.”
I sighed. “It’s all-region band, Chad. Kids from all over the region. The concert’s always at a high school, and this year it’s Bishop’s turn to host.”
Just saying it out loud—all-region band—made me wish I hadn’t forced down that bowl of cereal before we left. The whole thing was kind of insane—rehearse today and tomorrow, then perform at a concert tomorrow night? What if it sounded horrible? The music wasn’t that hard, but still . . .
I hopped out of Chad’s car with my horn case and my folder, unstuck a napkin from my shoe, and tossed the two cans that had fallen out back onto the seat.
“What, no tip?” Chad asked, holding out his hand. I slapped the sticky napkin into his palm.
“There you go.”
I hurried across the lawn away from the entrance. The letter Mr. Dante had given us said there were doors to the band hall on the side of the school, so we wouldn’t have to go through the front and wander through the hallways with a bunch of high-schoolers. Sure enough, I saw a set of double doors propped open with two music stands, each with a sign reading WELCOME TO ALL-REGION BAND!
I stepped inside, glancing at my watch. I was pretty early. Okay, I was half an hour early—I totally lied to Chad about what time I needed to be here because I knew we’d be late if I didn’t.
There were a few kids milling around, but they mostly looked like high-schoolers. I passed the cubby room and did a double take. It was huge. Whoa, and they had vending machines right outside. I grinned, wondering what Gabby would say when she saw them. She’d gotten in trouble last semester because she kept eating candy before band, and all the sugar had a pretty gross effect on her saxophone. Glancing around at the cubbies, I wondered if any of these instruments had ants in them. Hopefully high-schoolers were better about cleaning their instruments than Gabby.
I headed down the hall past the cubbies, then went through the next set of double doors into the band hall. It was . . . disappointingly small. All-region auditions had been at Ridgewood, and that band hall was way bigger than this. Actually, Bishop’s band hall looked about the same size as Millican’s. Kind of weird, considering it was a pretty big high school.
A woman in a Bishop Band T-shirt was arranging chairs and music stands in the middle of the room. She glanced up and smiled at me.
“Here for all-region?” she asked.
“Yes,” I sai
d nervously. “Is there a seating chart?”
“There will be,” she said cheerfully, pointing at a stack of papers on the director’s podium. “I’m about to start putting names on chairs so you all know where to sit.”
“Do you need help?” I wasn’t trying to be such a kiss-up, I swear. I was just really nervous. Doing anything organizational would help me calm down.
But the woman beamed. “I’d love it!”
We talked while we adjusted stands and set the pages with individual printed names on each chair. Her name was Ms. Hunter, she was the assistant band director at Bishop, and she played the French horn, too. She acted really disappointed when I said I was going to Ridgewood, which made me blush.
“I could always use great horn players,” she said with a wink. “Especially ones who know how to show up early.”
“I can’t stand being late,” I said vehemently, making my way down the row where the clarinets would sit. I was about to tell her how I’d lied to Chad when I noticed the name on my next page. JULIA GORDON, MILLICAN.
“Oh, so this is the concert band,” I realized out loud. “Where’s the symphonic band rehearsing?”
“In the band hall,” Ms. Hunter replied.
“This isn’t the band hall?” I asked, glancing back at the cubbies. “Is it the choir room or something?”
Ms. Hunter shook her head. “It’s our ensemble room.” When I stared at her blankly, she grinned. “Like a second band hall.”
Whoa.
“Um, where’s the band hall?” I asked, setting the last page down.
“Just across the corridor,” she said. “So you’re in the advanced symphonic band?”
“Yes.”
“As a seventh-grader?”
“Yes.” I tried to sound modest.
She laughed. “Now I really wish you were coming to Bishop.”
I liked Ms. Hunter.
By the time we finished setting up, more kids were milling around, and they definitely weren’t all high-schoolers. I grabbed my horn case and headed for the band hall—the other band hall. (Seriously, how cool was that?)
Sleepovers, Solos, and Sheet Music Page 2
